The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
In spite of the giant wins in November, there seems to be little joy in mudblogville these days. There are a few things contributing to this. As long as we had a Republican Congress to combat we had a clear purpose with clear goals. We don’t have that now. Instead we have a Democratic Congress and we still have this damn war. We want the Democrats to end the war but they don’t have the numbers they need to make it happen. We can come up with all kinds of strategies for what they should do, but none of them seem very promising. Stopping an expansion of the war into Iran seems like the best we can hope to do right now, and even that is not assured. It’s extremely frustrating.
We have to add to this a crop of presidential candidates that mostly voted for the war. Our frontrunner, Hillary, wont even apologize for her vote or admit that she made a mistake. This is incredibly dispiriting.
We’ve got a jury of eleven down in Washington DC that needs over a week to decide whether or not Scooter Libby committed perjury. A rented mule could determine that he committed perjury in fifteen minutes. This is discouraging.
All these things, plus the short winter days, seem to be weighing everyone down. So, I thought I do something to cheer everyone up. Let’s have some music. How about 10,000 Maniacs at President Clinton’s 1993 inaugural ball?
I prefer “Automatic Baby”- half of U2 & half of REM playing “One” and upstaging Don Henley’s ’93 inaugural set.
I mean, as long as we’re VH1-ing it in this thread. 😉
We’ve got a jury of eleven down in Washington DC that needs over a week to decide whether or not Scooter Libby committed perjury. A rented mule could determine that he committed perjury in fifteen minutes. This is discouraging.
Having been on them twice, I can say juries take their job seriously, which is to follow the law and weigh all the evidence. On the “follow the law” part, the jury in question has received instructions which are at least 74 pages long, which I know only from yesterday’s report that when they asked a clarifying question of the judge, they referred to that page. The entire set of instructions might be quite longer, who knows. On the “weigh all the evidence” part, there was weeks of testimony, and they are strictly forbidden from discussing any of it until after it’s all over. So having come to the issue with an open mind, they are working their way through it conscientiously.
We should be glad about that. Whichever way they come out, they are doing as thorough and fair job as they can. As a lawyer, as a liberal, and as an American, that’s exactly what I want them to do when someone’s liberty is at stake.
Deciding to put someone in prison for a long time requires more consideration than that of your average rented mule. While I agree that Libby is most probably guilty, that is not my decision to make, which I am glad about, because being on a jury is torturous.
Me and eleven others once had to decide whether a guy should be put to death. The judge had very clear ideas that he should, and was very surprised that we took so long, too. Then he was shocked when we disagreed with him. But then again, he didn’t have to make the call, we did. He thought the acquittal sent the wrong message. But it’s not about messages. It’s not about scoring political points. It’s about whether the evidence taken as a whole proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular defendant is guilty of a particular crime.
Whichever way this jury comes out, they will have to live with their decision for the rest of their lives. So kindly fucking lay off.
yep. very frustrating, to say the least. i know for me, i’m still waiting for some type of tangible payoff from the november elections wrt immigration reform. i hear that it is going to be debated soon, which just means that at the moment the vigilante groups are gearing up for a fight. hopefully “our side” will be just as vocal and moreso.
music is the healing force of the universe…albert ayler
tommy emmaneul, an aussie, gives proof that the guitar is, indeed a percussive instrument.
enjoy
march on the pentagon: 3.17.07
Draft Al Gore: 2008
I’ll see your awesome Tony Emmaneul, and raise you a King Sunny Ade and his African Beats, for a little taste of AfricaFunk.
We want the Democrats to end the war but they don’t have the numbers they need to make it happen.
What we do not have is the number of Democrats with the spine and commitment to ending this war to make it happen.
“A rented mule could determine that he committed perjury in fifteen minutes.”
And if Libby had committed perjury about a blowjob, so could a jury. Then again, I think the lies that were used to start a war and kill thousands (not to mention empty the US treasury) deserve a little more than 15 minutes of discussion.
Hopefully the wait is even more painful for Scooter and Darth. Has Cheney run out of countries that are willing to host while he waits for the verdict yet?
I’d love to hear some Democrat actually explain what “ending the war” means. Does it mean withdrawal from Iraq? I doubt it. We’ve built four permanent mega-bases in the heart of the most strategically vital area of the world. We’ve built a palace of an embassy that would make Nebachudnezzer (sp?) green with envy. Which Democrat (apart from Kucinich) would actually abandon that position?
As long as we’re dug in in the middle of the Arab/Muslim world the US will always be a target for jihadis, Arab nationalists, and outsiders who don’t want the US controlling the petroleum resources of the area. The intensity of the conflict may vary from time to time but it won’t end.
Eisenhower was right. The military/industrial complex has taken over and they’ve drawn the energy industry and the media into partnership with them. There is no Democrat who will take them on. This mess won’t get cleaned up until the economy absolutely collapses. For now, however, we go merrily along thinking that the aburd debt we owe to our Asian bankers isn’t really debt–it’s tribute paid to the emperor.
We have to add to this a crop of presidential candidates that mostly voted for the war. Our frontrunner, Hillary, wont even apologize for her vote or admit that she made a mistake. This is incredibly dispiriting.
BooMan, kinda disagree here. I’m not a huge Hillary fan but I have to point out a couple of things. Has Hillary said “I’m sorry”? No, she hasn’t. But on August 29, 2004 she did say this on Meet The Press with Tim Russert.
Since that time she has continued making that statement and also elaborating that she herself would have voted NO if she’d known there were no WMD. So in my estimation she has pretty much stated that her vote was an error. She has not explicitly said she’s “sorry”. But I think doing that would only serve to give the Rightie Sound Machine an audio clip to use over and over and over to club her to death.
I am certainly not a Hillary champion and I don’t like a lot of the posturing she is doing right now, but I’m afraid that saying she hasn’t “apologized” just kind of perpetuates a Right Wing meme here.
We’ve got a jury of eleven down in Washington DC that needs over a week to decide whether or not Scooter Libby committed perjury. A rented mule could determine that he committed perjury in fifteen minutes. This is discouraging.
Well, yeah, I would also like it if they had just said, “Hell, we don’t even need to deliberate, he’s guilty. And while we’re here let’s get the Vice President in and try him, too”. But that’s not how things work in the real world and we have to accept the judicial process (unless you’re the President, then of course the judicial process is optional). We’ll just have to wait and see.
All this being said, I too am a little discouraged. But there is still a lot to do and hopefully the Democrats in Congress can get their act together before Bush and his cohorts bring us all down in one final, mind blowing crash.
Don’t give up hope just yet. Hang in there.
BTW, love the music.